Konami will relist Metal Gear Solid games on digital storefronts

gamesradar.com:

In celebration of Metal Gear's 35th anniversary, Konami is preparing to relist previously-delisted games in the series.

Earlier today on July 13, Konami's Japanese Twitter account put out the statement below. The statement reads that in celebration of the Metal Gear series' 35th anniversary today, the company is preparing to "resume sales" of games in the series that were previously delisted.

1987年7月13日に発売された『METAL GEAR』シリーズは、本日35周年を迎えました。一時販売を停止しておりますタイトルにおいて、販売再開のための準備を進めております。　#METALGEAR #MG35th pic.twitter.com/X7RL5du2qEJuly 13, 2022

Konami obviously isn't revealing which titles it's preparing to relist, but there's some educated guesses to be made. Back in late 2021, Konami announced it would be delisting both Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater from digital storefronts. 

This was apparently because of expired licenses of historical footage used in both games. At the time, Konami released a statement saying it would work to get both games back on digital storefronts at some point in the future, but we haven't heard any additional information about this until now, over eight months later.

This is obviously a huge relief for not just fans of the Metal Gear Solid series, but also game preservation at large. The Metal Gear Solid series is infamous for being difficult to play on modern gaming systems, with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain being the only mainline game players can experience across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Earlier this year though, a new report claimed a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake was in development, and a separate report claimed series lead Hideo Kojima was reportedly consulting on the remake. The new anniversary has come and gone without any such announcement